Notes of a word-watcher, Hanching Chung. A first port of call for English learning.

2016年3月5日 星期六

prerogative, curtsy, ail, ailment, malaise, fissure, unnamability

"If drawing my sword against thehumor of affection would deliver me from thereprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisonerand ransom him to any French courtier for anew-devised curtsy."--Armado from "Love's Labor Lost" (1.2.59-63)

1. In the Bible, unnamability is evidence of holiness; for Samuel Beckett, it is the cornerstone of the absurd.

By MICHAEL WINES

We hope Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda provides the strong and creative leadership Japan needs to recover from recent disasters and its economic malaise.

International financial markets tumbled as a darkening global economic outlook and deepening fissures in Europe over its debt crisis fueled fears the world economy could slip into a period of prolonged malaise.

"creation of a new benevolent despotism, but further limitation of the Crown's prerogative. Peace These, however, were minor matters compared with the most important of the new ... "

Of course, there are corollaries to this. One must certainly touch the Queen if the monarch offers her hand (though you should return this not with a firm handshake but just a touch). On Wednesday, Michelle Obama put her hand on the Queen only after the Queen had placed her own hand on the First Lady's back as part of their conversation. So there is room for theological argument as to whether the American reciprocity of touch was allowable given the social dynamics of the situation. (Less explicable was when President George W. Bush winked at the Queen.) Still, the sight of anyone apparently touching the Queen with anything more than a limp handshake is enough to send the British (or traditionalists in the old Commonwealth) twittering. (See pictures of the Obamas' travels in Europe.)
Another defense for Michelle Obama, of course, is that she is not a subject of the Queen. (Australians, despite referendums attempting to turn themselves into a republic, still recognize the Queen as their head of state.) The First Lady of the United States is not required to curtsey before her or any other crowned head. In any case, the touch lasted just a second or two, and the Queen did not seem particularly perturbed — though she appeared slightly surprised as she drew away. (See how Barack Obama is connected to the Queen via TIME's Person of the Year.)
So where does this rule about not touching the Queen come from? The sovereigns of England and France at some point in their nations' long histories claimed a divine right to rule, a right often amplified by titles bestowed by the Pope in Rome. (The Queen, in fact, still has the title Defender of the Faith, an honor given to Henry VIII before he broke with the Catholic Church and established the Church of England.) That touch of holiness once gave the occupant of the throne the supposed ability to cure certain diseases — most famously, scrofula, a terrible skin ailmentthat was called "the king's evil." Thus, the miraculous contact had to be conserved. And so, whether a touch or a nod or a gaze, royal favor, like that of God, is not a subject's on demand; it is dispensed by kingly prerogative. (See pictures from the 2006 celebration of the Queen's birthday.)
— With reporting by Simon Robinson / London

curtsyn., pl.-siesor -seys.
A gesture of respect or reverence made chiefly by women by bending the knees with one foot forward and lowering the body.intr.v., -sied or -seyed, -sy·ing or -sey·ing, -sies or -seys.
To make a curtsy.

To begin with, there's an overall sense, probably unrealistic, that everything that ails Iran today and frustrates average Iranians � from the widespread unemployment to a sense of isolation from the world, to a lack of foreign investment, to a general political malaise � would somehow be reversed if Iranian-U.S. relations were restored and the U.S. embargo on Iran were lifted.

Ailing 生病中的

Not only does that make it easier to contrast GE's insurance operations with those of other insurers, notes Prudential Securities analyst Nicholas P. Heymann, but it should make the other three units look much better, since reinsurance losses following September 11 have been a huge drain on earnings this year. Isolating the bad news into one division might even be a catalyst for GE to fix and sell its ailing reinsurance business.

The administration also claims that the tax cut, conceived at a time of runaway boom, is exactly the right medicine for an ailing economy.

The cure Mr. Bush now proposes for such ailments � a big new federal bureaucracy with 169,000 employees that stands apart from the F.B.I. and C.I.A. bureaucracies � is still another avoidance of accountability and still another repudiation of the efficient, lean-government corporate Republicanism that he supposedly champions.

Origin

Late Middle English: via Old French from Latinpraerogativa '(the verdict of) the political division which was chosen to vote first in the assembly', feminine (used as noun) of praerogativus 'asked first', from prae'before' + rogare 'ask'.